Featured Interview With Ash Gray
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’ve lived a little bit of everywhere. Even my childhood was split up into different states. As a result, I belong everywhere and no where. I consider myself from the west coast at heart. A beach girl forever.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I learned to read when I was three. My mother would read to me every night. They were nursery rhymes, so I remembered them and wound up learning to read with Humpty Dumpty. As soon as I learned, I started to reading on my own. I watched kids’ shows that were about fairy tales and stories, stories, stories, and I read everything. I used to love going to the library in Sacramento for Story Time and being surrounded by the books. I started writing when I twelve. My aunt died and my mother handed me a journal and said, “Write.” I wrote my first novel when i was fifteen (like every other writer in existence) and I’ve been writing them more and more since.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
When I was young, I started out reading classical literature because that’s what my mother read to me every night before bed. Yeah, she was seriously reading Moby Dick to a six-year-old. But it stuck. I developed an early appreciation for classic literature and later went on to indulge avidly in fantasy. I read Mercedes Lackey, Storm Constantine, Anne Rice, and Clive Barker the most. Also, Ursula Le Guin and C.S. Lewis, two opposite ends of the spectrum.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
In 2011, I was playing Final Fantasy 12, which is a Japanese role playing game. I asked myself what it would be like to write a story with a all-woman cast, with each woman fulfilling a classic rpg role. So I started writing Thieves of Nottica. There’s Rigg, the Thief and the main character. Morganith the warrior/action-hero. Hari, the mage type (though magic has been lost due to pollution in the world). And finally, Lisa, the robot, who is a cross between mage-healer and warrior. Lisa was my favorite character to write, because as a scifi nerd, I adore robots and exploring the whole concept of what it means to be alive. Lisa learns what it means through her interactions with the Keymasters, Rigg in particular, who she falls in love with.
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